A new short documentary from the Ontario Provincial Police highlights a serious and growing danger to children: online sexual exploitation.
Titled “Protecting Innocence,” the film features a courageous mother and daughter sharing their ordeal with online abuse.
This video, available on YouTube, is part of a broader initiative from Ontario’s Provincial Internet Child Exploitation (ICE) program, aimed at highlighting a rapidly escalating crisis according to law enforcement.
Det. Staff Sgt. Tim Brown, who oversees the ICE strategy, explains that today’s children face dangers that go well beyond their immediate surroundings.
“Kids have no safety net online,” Brown stated. “It’s our basic duty as a society to protect them.”
As internet and smartphone usage among young children rises, it also gives predators easier access to minors.
The OPP reports a trend of offenders exploiting social media, gaming sites, and messaging services to connect with children, often masquerading as peers to gain their trust.
In 2024, there were 2,717 reported incidents of child luring submitted to Cybertips, a national hotline for reporting child sexual exploitation online.
Brown also mentioned to Global News that emerging technologies, especially artificial intelligence, are aiding offenders in creating synthetic child sexual abuse materials.
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Even if the images generated aren’t of real victims, they remain illegal according to Canadian law.
Brown mentioned that AI-generated images complicate investigations by creating fictitious victims and exacerbating the circulation of child abuse content online.
“Deepfake technology isn’t new,” he noted. “But AI makes this process faster, easier, and more seamless.”
“It can mislead our investigators when trying to identify a nonexistent child.”
This technology is being utilized to digitally modify actual images of children—sometimes sourced from public profiles or innocent online posts—to create false and explicit content.
“This is the first noticeable area in which we’ve seen these complications arise in our cases recently,” Brown stated.
He stressed the importance of parental involvement.
“There’s definitely a community duty, and parents must stay informed about their children’s activities,” he emphasized.
He urged parents to frequently check their children’s device privacy settings, engage in discussions about safe online practices, and learn to identify signs of grooming or exploitation. Simple actions like overseeing apps and online conversations can have a profound impact.
“We need parents to be vigilant for their children,” he stressed.
For investigators, the drive to protect children is deeply personal.
“We are all parents or grandparents; in some cases, we’re aunts, uncles, siblings. We each have kids in our lives,” Brown remarked.
“Some of us have directly encountered this form of abuse and exploitation. There’s a very human aspect to our work as investigators.”
The urgency of this issue is underscored by statistics.
In 2024, Ontario made up 24% of all online child sexual exploitation cases referred to Cybertip.ca, with over 6,300 incidents logged in the province. Of these, more than 1,000 cases were escalated to law enforcement for further inquiry.
Recent coordinated efforts among several police divisions in Ontario are revealing the extensive nature of the issue.
Project Orchard, the latest OPP-led initiative, led to 67 criminal investigations, 46 search warrants, and the identification of nine child victims.
Officers confiscated 313 electronic devices and initiated 199 charges against individuals involved in online exploitation.
According to Brown, these operations represent just one aspect of a much larger effort.
The ICE strategy continues to motivate parents and community members to voice concerns through Cybertip.ca and to remain aware of the online threats children face.
Nonetheless, the police emphasize: protecting children is a collective duty.
“We really are in this struggle together,” Brown concluded.
© 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
